The Orcas Island Community Band, now in its 20th year, will present its annual spring concert next week. Not bad for the motley crew that started out as a garage band in 1990.

“I always like to take the band out to play,” said director Joe Babcock. “It’s the culmination of our year’s work, a final presentation of everything that we’ve done.”

The concert on Friday, June 4, 7:30 p.m. at Orcas Center will feature selections written by American composers, including Aaron Copeland’s 20th century classical work, “Fanfare for the Common Man.”

Other works include Robert Russell Bennett’s 1949 “Suite of Old American Dances”, John Philip Sousa’s 1888 “Semper Fidelis”, and George and Ira Gershwin’s “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”, which will be sung by Grace McCune.

The band began in 1990, with a handful of musicians gathered in Marlin Brown’s Orcas Highlands garage.

“We were a pretty loose group at the time, and we just got together to play some music and have some fun. I think that’s been the band’s mantra since it started,” said founding member Russ Harvey.

Dubbed “the Orcas Island Hysterical Society’s Sedentary Band,” the group was performing occasionally in the Orcas Island Historical Society’s July parades by 1994. After the band played on center stage in one of Orcas Center’s early variety shows, membership exploded.

The Orcas Island Community Band is now a 501(c)(3) non-profit, all-volunteer organization comprised of about 40 Orcas Island (and occasionally, neighboring-island) high schoolers and adults dedicated to making a unique musical and cultural contribution to the community. Members include health care workers, firefighters, school teachers, engineers, politicians, doctors, housewives, students, and senior citizens.

Past directors have included Marlin Brown, Kirke Muse, Virgil Cleveland, Gary Bennett, Liz Hanks, and occasional stand-in and guest conductors.

The band has developed a long and illustrious resume: it performs annually for the Fourth of July parade and fireworks at Waterfront Park, Summer in the Parks concerts and the Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony each December.

The group has celebrated graduations, grand openings for the Senior Center, a concrete pour at the Doe Bay Firehouse and the annual Return of the Olga Dock, has led St. Patrick’s Day parades and welcomed home soldiers from Iraq.

The band has been a merry presence at Burton Burton’s train depot parties, Library Fair activities and fundraising auctions, performing regularly at Orcas Center. The band performed at the Puyallup Fair in 2003 and even went international in 2009 at a Ladner, British Columbia band festival.

Band president Sue Kimple said the group has always encouraged kids, if they were disciplined enough to sit through a Monday night rehearsal.

“One of the things I’ve always loved about the community band, (is that) it welcomed any level of play, any level of expertise or not,” said Kimple. She said many band members also volunteer as music tutors in the schools.

Founding member Karen Speck said the group is a friendly, social band dedicated to having fun and making music.

“Throughout our history, the Orcas Island Community Band has striven to promote high-quality performance of traditional and contemporary band literature,” said Speck. “The impact of our outreach program has been noted time and again as music lovers, especially students, have seen that their love of music can last a lifetime and our wonderful community embraces us. Our membership and musical growth continues to fulfill our ambitions for greater visibility and a busier concert schedule.”

Babcock said he enjoys challenging the band with tricky pieces.

“It’d be real easy to just sit back on our heels and not play anything of any substance,” he said, “but you don’t get any sense of accomplishment with that.”

Babcock encouraged the community to come out for the concert.

“It will definitely be a lot of fun, the most fun thing that’s happening on Orcas Island that Friday night,” he said. “It will be an opportunity to see their friends and neighbors doing something very unique and entertaining. (Band members are) using their personal skills to a very high level. It’s a good little band and I’m always proud to put them out for people to hear … I think the island should be proud of them.”